Praise! Praise! Praise!

Wow, the last few days have been quite unnerving for us. This past weekend Joshua discovered a chain of small lumps on his neck near his lymph nodes, so off to the Doctors we went. The doctor wasn't sure what it was. They gave him an antibiotic and told us to come back in 7-10 days. (They were thinking something viral might be the cause.) Several hours later that same day we received a message from the doctors office saying that they wanted us to call them the next day (Sunday) to talk to us about making plans. Needless to say this really scared us and led our minds to think about things that we didn't want to think about. So, we called them on Sunday to find out what they were thinking. All the nurse could tell me is that the doctor wanted to see Joshua on Tuesday. While we were waiting we had lots of people praying. Finally Tuesday came and we got great news. It turned out to just be a lymphatic chain we were feeling. Because he is fairly thin it made it easier to feel and it could be that he is fighting a viral infection that made it inflamed. The doctor assured us that it was nothing more than that and that if he had any doubts he would be doing tests to make sure. We were soooo relieved Mike and I both almost cried right there in the office. While going through all of this the Lord really spoke to me. After talking with our Sunday school class about it, the teacher started quoting several verses about healing and not fearing. I was trying to look them up as fast as I could because I wanted to have them for later, but then he passed a card to me and told me that was the list of verses he had picked out to memorize that week.(I still have the card in my bible) The sermon was on trusting God even when things are bad, and they played a song that has special meaning to me.(God used that song to help me get through a past issue I had dealt with) Even this morning when I had a momentary break-down God gave me his comfort. I prayed and told God I really needed to hear from Him, that everything was going to be okay no matter what the news was. I decided to read from a devotional book that is special to me. I went to todays date in the book and the verses for the day was a verse I had memorized just a few weeks earlier. The verses in Psalm 34:17.....The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. (I get teary eye just thinking about this verse.) The Lord really does hear our cries and He is good all the time and that would still be true even if the outcome would have been different. Thank you, thank you for all your prayers, and Thank you Jesus for answering them all!

Now on a lighter note here are some pictures from our ski trip on Monday. We were cleared from the doctor to still go on our trip. It was a great trip and I was glad to not be at home thinking about what might happen the following day. We went to Appalachian Ski Mountain with our homeschool group. It was cold and at some moments frustrating (me trying to get up after falling!!) but overall it was a nice trip for our family.

The whole Ryals gang!


Joshua (snowboarding) and Noah zooming by some kid who had fallen.


Seth looking cool in the shades!


Mike and I coming down the slopes. It snowed half the morning and looked pretty while skiing.


I don't know what I was doing here?


My Hubby! or aka "Daddio" by the boys.


Yes, that's still my hubby!! (I do love him so especially when he's silly!!)


What a sweet picture of Noah on the way Home. Can you tell he's tired?


Look at those cute red cheeks!


Joshua snowboarding.


That's my boys!